Why Do I March Against Monsanto?

Monsanto is the company that told us PCBs were safe, and took over production of this in 1929. They were convicted of poisoning people in the town next to the PCB factory and ordered to pay over $700 million to those townspeople. PCBs were then banned by Congress in 1979.

Monsanto is the company that told us that Agent Orange was safe. Starting in 1961, our military used it as a defoliant in Vietnam and we now all know the affects that this chemical had on not only our service members and their heirs, but long standing affects on the Vietnamese, and their environment. In 1984, veterans settled a class-action lawsuit with seven chemical companies and won over $180 million (40% paid by Monsanto).

Monsanto is the company that told us DDT was safe when they started manufacturing it in 1944. In 1948 the chemist responsible for it’s discovery won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. DDT was banned by our government in 1972 for it’s toxicity.

Monsanto is the company that tells us Aspartame is safe, and purchased the company that manufactured it in 1985. “During the clinical trials conducted on 7 infant monkeys as part of aspartame’s application for FDA approval, 1 monkey died and 5 other monkeys had grand mal seizures—yet somehow aspartame was still approved by the FDA.” In 2005 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report listing 94 health issues caused by aspartame, yet it has not been banned.

Monsanto is the company that tells us that GMOs are safe. We’ve only had GMOs as part of our diets for 15 years, yet they have suddenly taken over almost our entire food supply. It has taken at least twenty years to address the health and environmental affects of everything else Monsanto has created to be realized, then banned. I don’t want to wait another 5-15 years for the government to get off their asses and discover these are hazardous… after we’ve essentially, potentially contaminated the entire population.

I’m not saying they are bad for us, I’m not saying I want them banned. I’m saying that I don’t trust them telling us they are good for us, and I think it’s interesting every other first world country in the world (besides Canada) has labeled or banned them due to testing or lack of testing… and their previously biggest accomplishments have all turned out to be their biggest failures, harming a lot of people in the process. I don’t want myself or your children to be their science experiment.